Fortigurn wrote:I have to say, I find Dale's argument powerfully convincing. The Vogel case appears overcomplicated, and reliant
on tenuous arguments.
I had a couple of ideas to add -- and the first one is that I do not have a total explanation for the Book of Mormon,
all neatly figured out and communicated in a published book. Although I have considered the Spalding-Rigdon theory
an explanation worthy of careful study, and have spent a considerable amount of time looking into the matter, it was
relatively recently that I adopted that theory as my primary belief. That evolution in my thinking came over a long
period of studying the internal evidence, the external evidence and what I call the contextual evidence (or the Mormon
reaction, signs of a cover-up, etc.)
So I do not have "arguments" so carefully thought out and articulated as do several investigators who have published
their respective books on the topic of a 19th century origin for the Book of Mormon. With luck and help from others, I
may get such a book published within a couple years. If so, it will only be after that is accomplished that I will be in a
position to stand up a set of "arguments" against the Smith-alone advocates; and even then my probable position will
be that those advocates have uncovered and discerned at least part of the process by which the Book of Mormon text was created.
You elsewhere asked why it was that Solomon Spalding's neighbors (or perhaps mostly the children of those neighbors)
took to calling him "Old Come to Pass"?
I do not think there is currently enough evidence available for us to make a firm determination on that odd recollection.
As I recall, three of the Connneaut witnesses said that the phrase "and it came to pass" was frequently repeated in
some of Spalding's fiction they had read or heard read. But none of those witnesses specifically stated that he was given
a nick-name due to his general use of that term in his writings or conversations.
The next place that a "new" reference to Spalding and his using the term pops up, is many years later in the published
recollections of Joseph Miller of Amity, PA. He is quoted as saying:
"Sometime ago, I had in my possession, for about six months, the Book of Mormon and heard most of it read
during the time. I was always forcibly struck with the similarity of the portions of it which purported to be of
supernatural origin to the quaint style and peculiar language that had made so deep an impression on my mind
when hearing the manuscript read by Mr. S. For instance, the very frequent repetition of the phrase,
"and it came to pass."http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/PA ... htm#020579Notice that here Mr. Miller only says that the term was "very frequent" in a certain "manuscript" that he heard Spalding
read aloud. There is no indication that the phrase was applied to the man as a nick-name.
A couple of years later, the statement of Abner Jackson was published, and there, for the first time I can determine,
the assertion was made in the public press that Spalding was actually called by that name:
Spaulding frequently read his manuscript to the neighbors and amused them as he progressed with his work.
He wrote it in Bible style, "And it came to pass" occurred so often that some called him "old come to pass." http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/PA ... htm#010781In the same statement, Jackson also relates this unsual bit of information:
When it was brought to Conneaut and read there in public, old Esq. Wright heard it, and exclaimed,
"'Old come to pass' has come to life again." Here was the place where Spaulding wrote and read his
manuscript to the neighbors for their amusement and 'Squire Wright had often heard him read from
his Romance.I cannot determine when or how Jackson came across this information. The preserved record is too scant for us
to know at this point. All I can say is that it is an interesting claim and deserves further investigation.
The next item of interest, I think, would be an elaboration of Joseph Miller's, written a little after Abner Jackson's
claims had seen print:
I was familiar with Solomon Spaulding. I worked in Amity, where he lived, and as the fashion was at
that day, we all assembled at his house in the evenings (as he kept tavern), and he frequently would
read from his manuscript. The work was very odd. The words 'Moreover,' 'And it came to pass,' occurred
so often that the boys about the village called him 'Old Came to Pass.'
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs1/1890GrgD.htm#pg441
Mr. Miller's recollection came AFTER the publication of Abner Jackson's statement -- and Miller would have likely
read what Jackson had to say, since it was published in the local newspapers in the part of PA where Miller lived.
Thus, the possibility cannot be entirely ruled out that Miller's memory was jogged by Jackson's assertion, or that
Miller unconsciously appropriated Jackson's report and wove it into his own, subsequent testimony.
Rev. Clark Braden and Elder E. L. Kelley debated this matter as far back as 1884, without shedding much light
on the matter. Here is an excerpt from the RLDS newspaper of that year:
Saints Herald -- Braden/Kelley 1884 wrote:The evidence from their own witnesses are complete in showing one thing, that is, that Spaulding never
wrote an article of any kind that would in size, character, style, sense, taste, sentiment, or in any manner
compare with the Book of Mormon. But how about "old come to pass," says one. Like the pretended
remembrance of the names Lehi and Nephi, the false story of it was put into these witnesses' mouths
and they thought it a smart thing to say; that is evident to a man who will think. Why should they so
persistently call Spaulding "old come to pass?" Turn to the Bible in almost every part it abounds with the
expression. In some parts of Luke's gospel it is as frequent as in the Book of Mormon. How could it
receive the title of "old come to pass," from a singularity, when the expression was already a familiar one?
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IA ... htm#071284
Before we can say much more on the subject, some further evidence will have to be uncovered and reported.
I've been told that there is a published recollection of Spalding being called "Old Come to Pass" that pre-dates
the Jackson statement by a decade, but have never located and examined a copy of that item.
The general explanation I have heard, in this regard, is that Spalding was parodying the Bible in his lost tribes tale,
and that part of his over-done pastiche included the ridiculous repetition of some typical biblical terms. As Elder Kelley
pointed out, such a use of the term "come/came to pass" was not unique to the recollections of Spalding witnesses.
For example, in old newspapers of the early 19th century we sometimes find political or social satire, composed in the
form of a biblical chronicle. I have a couple of examples posted on my newspaper articles web-pages. Part of the
intended humor of such satires was their mock-serious and mock-pious repetition of phrases like "and then it came
to pass," "Lo and behold!," "wherefore," etc. One explanation of the witness reports was that Spalding made use of
this already popular satirical device in some (but not all) of his writings, as well as in his periodic public readings of
the "biblical" (but fictional) "Manuscript Found."
If Solomon Spalding only began to compose his "Manuscript Found" a few months before he left Ohio, I am not
sure that a sufficient amount of time had elapsed, before he departed that place for Pittsburgh, for such an odd
nick-name to have developed and "stuck" to him.
On the other hand, if Spalding had been writing in biblical language even BEFORE the time he composed his Roman
story, then the writing sequence of the Oberlin Roman tale, the reported lost tribes epic, etc., would not make much
of a difference, and the nick-name might have been coined earlier than the summer of 1812. There are reports of his
having communications back and forth with his fellow Congregational minister and Dartmouth College classmate,
the Rev. Ethan Smith, on "lost tribes" fiction, and a certain Spalding manuscript on that subject reportedly was
preserved in Middleton, VT as late as the 1870s. That town was within walking distance of Poultney, where Ethan Smith
was once a pastor -- so perhaps the Solomon/Ethan connection did produce some ersatz biblical fiction even before
Solomon Spalding left New England for the west.
However, it doesn't make sense for us to examine the Roman story text and to try and make firm conclusions based
upon its phraseology, since it is not written in pseudo-scriptural "King James" English. We might just as well try and
determine Mark Twain's Mississippi river boat jargon by consulting his "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."
It is a part of the Spalding authorship claims that I think still remains to be investigated, before we try to rely upon
the nick-name as an established fact of history. It may well be that the man
was called by that name in more
than one place that he lived ---- but until some earlier (and less polemic) evidence turns up, I remain a bit skeptical.
Uncle Dale